Babylon took the ruling class and left the farmers, and Rome expelled no people by decree

The Babylonian exile was punishment for two political rebellions, not religious persecution, and it targeted the ruling class specifically so nobody could organize a third one. It removed a minority, roughly 10 to 25 percent, and explicitly left the farming population on the land. Judah was never emptied. We have 200 cuneiform tablets from the exile community showing them owning property, leasing land, running businesses and paying taxes. They were not slaves. They built lives there. When Cyrus opened the door in 539, roughly 42,000 went back over the following decades and the rest stayed by choice.

After the First Revolt, in which Jerusalem fell in 70 and Masada in 73, no Jews were expelled by decree afterwards. They were removed as war dead and as slaves, not by any decree expelling a people from a territory. No such decree exists in Roman law, in Josephus, or anywhere else. It was never written. After the next revolt, in 135, Hadrian barred Jews from Jerusalem and the country around it: a ban on entering one district, not the removal of a people from the land, and Jews went on living in Galilee. By the time of Rome, most Jews in the world already lived outside Palestine.

First published on Quora: my original debunk.